March for Our Lives Event Map Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Let's Do the Time Warp Again
Twice a year we move our clocks in one direction or the other by an hour. This Sunday we move them in the direction modern-day Republicans hate: forward.
Time. Slippery thing. No one knows how much they'll get, but most people agree that whatever it is it's not enough. We want time and we need time but too often we don’t take time or make time. We take time-outs, but a lot of good it does because time doesn't care about your time-out…it rolls merrily along. Also no time-and-a-half, you moocher.
It took me 20 minutes to write that paragraph. That's time I didn’t have but somehow I found it and now it's lost.
The Women’s Suffrage March on Washington happened 105 years ago this month and it feels like ancient history. The Selma to Montgomery marches took place 53 years ago this week and it feels like the blink of an eye. And time flew so fast between Trump’s flip and flop on North Korea that Chris Cillizza didn’t even have time to blurt out “Truly this was the day he became president.” And speaking of time:
Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time. (T.S. Eliot)
Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. (Ambrose Bierce)
Aside from Velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe. You can’t see it or touch it, yet a plumber can charge you upwards of seventy-five dollars per hour for it, without necessarily fixing anything. (Dave Barry)
Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time. (Stephen Wright)
So, anyway. Clocks forward an hour Sunday morning at 2am. We lose an hour of sleep. Thanks a lot, Obama.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
P.S. Oops! In our seventh poll option, we goofed and misspelled the last name of one of the titans of journalism. It’s Jane Mayer. Sorry ‘bout that.
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, March 9, 2018
Note: Don’t forget to fill out a contest entry form and put it in the fish bowl next to the kiddie pool for the big drawing. Tonight’s grand prize is forgiveness for the Hatch Act violation of your choice. Good luck!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the special election in PA-18 between Conor Lamb (D) and Rick Saccone (R): 4
Days 'til the Oregon Cheese Festival in Central Point: 8
Percent of registered voters in a Suffolk University/USA Today poll who say they’ll be more likely to vote for a Democrat House member on November 6: 47%
Percent who say they’re more likely to vote for a Republican: 32%
Percent of Millennials who say they identify with the Democratic and Republican party, respectively, according to Pew Research: 62% (up from 50% in 2014), 29% (down from 41% in 2014)
Percent of respondents in an NPR-Ipsos poll who think gun-control laws should be more and less strict, respectively: 75%, 8%
Number of countries that plan to follow Trump’s lead and move their embassy to Jerusalem: 1 (Guatemala)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Pastor Fluffy blesses the crops…
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CHEERS to gut checks. Pardon me for starting out on the personal side, but today marks a significant anniversary in the history of my existence. One year ago Mercy Hospital’s ER waiting room was the proud recipient of a bouncing baby Billy-in-agonizing-pain-and-looking-rather-gaunt. Something in my belly had declared war on me, and the 82 Advils I was taking per day just weren’t cutting it anymore. So they ran some tests, declared me a broken human, wheeled me into an OR for emergency surgery, gutted me like a fish, took out some stage-3 colon cancer, stapled me back together, took care of my every whim for a week but also stabbed me with many needles and told me I couldn’t watch Judge Judy with the volume set to 99, signed me up for a dozen sessions of chemo (a fizzy Folfox-fluorouracil, Oxaliplatin and Leucovorin cocktail with a lime twist and paper umbrella), helped me with the paperwork to nominate my post-surgery epidural for a Nobel Prize in Medicine, and declared me cancer-free...all the while accepting my Obamacare card with a smile. With the exception of the surgeon’s watch that’s still inside me (Ha Ha, love that joke!), I can’t say enough good things about the professionalism of the people who put up with me (including my partner, Saint Michael the Patient). These words I wrote on Facebook shortly before I was discharged are just as true to me today:
As for the doctors, nurses and staff here at Mercy Hospital, I would strip every penny from every worthless fucking hedge fund goon in a second and hand it all over to them. We are paying the wrong professionals the wrong wages. I watched these good-humored professionals with my own eyes come to work during an epic blizzard to drain stuff, relieve pain, and make sure we're all doing okay. But it's something they do every day. These people are gods and goddesses among men and women.
And through it all you guys were great, too. The cards, the quilt, the food, the uranium-powered battle tank (confiscated the next morning by the effing Pentagon killjoys) and, yes, the thoughts and good wishes really helped in the wake of such a shock to the system. So thank you for that. Hopefully it’ll be smooth sailing all the way up until my tragic paragliding accident on a fog-shrouded face of Mount Kilimanjaro at the age of 110. (Memo to my older self: I told you to take that left at Albuquerque, but do you ever listen to me? Nooooo.)
CHEERS to putting the grownups in charge. A couple months ago Democrats in Washington State found themselves in charge of both the executive and legislative branch after Manka Dhingra won a special election and flipped the senate to D control for the first time in six years. Gee, what could go right? A lot, it would seem, including passage or close-to-passage of laws that…
>> Require state insurance plans that cover maternity care to also cover contraceptives and abortion care
>> Ban bump stocks
>> Ban the practice of “conversion therapy” on gay kids
>> Require state insurers to cover preventive health services
>> Require availability of doula and midwife services to incarcerated pregnant people
>> “Ban the box” by barring employers from asking about arrests on a job application
>> Allow same-day registration
>> Allow pre-registration of 16 and 17-year-olds
>> Safeguard workers from on-the-job retaliation for discussing their salaries
Meanwhile, in Republican Land, a challenge to Roe v. Wade is percolating in Mississippi’s legislature, and child spouses are still A-OK with the GOP legislature in Tennessee. Elections have consequences. The midterms are in 241 days. Circle November 6th on your calendar and let’s MAWA: Make America Washington Again.
CHEERS to great moments in wingnut whapping. Sixty-four years ago today, on March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow took Ann Coulter's pin-up idol, Senator Joseph McCarthy, to the cleaners over his Communist witch hunt. His fab-o wrapup could serve as a middle-finger salute to McCarthy's modern-day doppelganger successor, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas:
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men---not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."
Senator McCarthy, of course, was the ideological jerk who thought he could bully and bluster his way to power and glory. As opposed to Senator Cruz, the ideological jerk who thinks he can bully and bluster his was to power and glory. They're totally different. McCarthy had better hair.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach asks: “Have you ever called me a shit sandwich?”
Daily.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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JEERS to the dick in the dock. The biggest scumbag in the country not directly associated with the Republican party just got his head---including that goddamn smirk---handed to him on a prison cafeteria platter. Today “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, who was convicted on securities fraud and conspiracy, just got sentenced---too-leniently IMHO, given that federal guidelines called for 20-30 years---to just seven years in prison:
U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto imposed the punishment after Shkreli, best known for orchestrating a 5000% price hike on a drug used to treat AIDS patients and others, tearfully acknowledged his guilt and asked for mercy. […]
Matsumoto said he was responsible for "lies," "egregious abuses of trust" and manipulation of a public company. While accepting Shkreli's statements of remorse, she also noted that as recently as January 2018, he sent an e-mail that said, "Fuck the feds," and claimed the government wouldn't get all of his money. […]
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons now is expected to transfer him to another facility where he will serve his sentence.
So let that be a lesson to you, kids: jack up the price of life-saving drugs by 5,000 percent and you’ll be fine. But try to defraud rich people and, by Grabthar’s hammer, you will be so busted with a sentence jacked down by 75 percent minus time served. Now somebody put that confiscated Wu-Tang Clan record on the turntable. It’s time to dance.
CHEERS to lending a hand. On March 11, 1941, President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act into law, which allowed American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan months before our official entry into World War II. Not to be picky, Britain, but four pencils and a weather balloon are still unaccounted for. [Uncomfortably long pause] And we'd like them back.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Rumor has it there's stuff on TV this weekend and I guess I'll take them at their word. After Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow do that thing they do tonight, Bill Maher's guests on Real Time include Kathy Griffin, Ana Navarro,Erick Erickson and comedian Trae “The Liberal Redneck” Crowder. New home video releases include the tons-of-fun Thor: Raganrok starring Jeff Goldblum and that’s all that matters, plus the decent reboot of Murder on the Orient Express with Kenneth Branagh and an all-star cast. The basketball schedule is here and the hockey schedule is here. Sterling K. Brown hosts SNL. On 60 Minutes: the long-term effects of childhood trauma, and where, oh, where, are the Confederate statues now? Sunday night at 8, ABC reboots American Idol---now with 100 percent more Lionel Richie! And John Oliver goes after another “sacred” American institution Sunday night at 11 on Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ).
This Week: TBA
CNN's State of the Union: Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Johnson (R-WI).
Face the Nation: Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO); CIA director Mike Pompeo; special expert panel discusses North Korea.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sen. Elizabeth Warren; CIA director Mike Pompeo.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 9, 2008
JEERS to spilt seamen. Admiral William Fallon, whom President Bush called "one of our country’s foremost military strategists," has resigned from being the guy everyone says "Yes sir!" to at Central Command. His crime: not also being one of the White House's foremost butt-kissers. Specifically: vowing that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch.” Memo to Tehran now that he’s gone: batten down the hatches, Ayatollahs...and don’t forget to greet us as liberators!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to C&J's senior editor. And by senior editor I of course mean our yellow lab mix Haley, who joined our family five years ago today.
Haley is a rescue dog---a southern belle from down yonder in Macon Georgia. Her life, especially at the start, has been full of challenges, starting with being unceremoniously dropped off at a shelter in a cage with 13 other puppies. After that: parvovirus…a sinus infection during which she was breathing much of the time through tiny pinholes in her nostrils…worms…cancer surgery on her face, and operations on both back legs to compensate for shredded ligaments in her knees.
Despite all the anxiety and pain, she's grown up to be one of the most zen dogs I've ever known, and she and her Dobbie ears have charmed everyone she's met. That includes the cat, who makes a point to spring an ambush on Haley at least a couple times a day. So after her five-year trial run with us, we hope she agrees to re-up for another year. A good sign: her suitcase is still under the bed gathering dust.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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